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Human Creativity Is Not Artificial

I found this article a few months ago via the 32-bit Cafe Discourse forum. One of the participants wrote it…

The Colonization of Confidence

It’s great. READ IT.

A little background on it. The author is, in fact, a professional writer and is blind. Not sure that matters at all, but maybe it does? Is an intelligent blind writer harder to sweep up in the Generative AI Hype Train? I have no idea.

Anyway, I enjoyed this short story a lot. Apparently it is a true story. Frankly, and I mean no insult to the author, there are parts that seem fictionalized. Nothing huge. A little bit of the dialog. Makes no difference if it is. It works.

In short, the story deals with an author in a writing group. One member of the group, a tech bro, has a boner for AI. Also, he’s a fucking douche. The rest of the group falls under his spell even as he destroys a good man’s confidence in his own writing.

Just read it. It’s about a 15-minute read, and worth it. Because here’s the thing.

WRITING is only done by humans. Not machines.

Writing, like all art, is a fundamentally human endeavor. Creating art involved human cognition. Remove human cognition and what you have left – is – just – shit.

I am doing writing at this exact moment. Sorry, if a machine put these exact words together, it’s not writing. ART is done by humans. I’ll go so far as to say that anyone who uses AI to write, or to even brainstorm, or to help arrange their thoughts on “paper” is not writing. Sorry. They just aren’t. If that’s you, then you are not writing.

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Website Details, Blogging, and Ethics

First. Yes, I’m posting a lot today.

A couple of years ago when I “discovered” the notion of the IndieWeb I also spent a lot of time exploring blogs. By blogs, I mean REAL blogs. The kind written by real human people, about their lives and opinions and ideas, on which they are not trying to sell things. I don’t like that the interwebs have become, in the mind of the Great Unwashed Masses, just a marketplace. I don’t like “app culture”. So I looked for other bloggers doing good work and started following them via RSS (in my case, using the Reeder app — yes — I know – a fucking APP!!! — but in this case it’s doing the lord’s work).

If you still don’t know what RSS is and why it can make your life better, read this thing I wrote.

So, getting to the point…

I found the blog Minutes to Midnight, by a person who would become an internet/blogging friend, Simone Silvestroni. Looking over his blogroll I found other good writers. I also discovered the word “colophon”, which I will be adding to this site, but more importantly on his colophon I found some really interesting information that I actually care about. In particular, notions of website accessibility and how green a site is. Lots of good links and info on that page! For example – links. Look people. Links need to be easy to find. The text needs to be a different color, have enough contrast to the rest of the page, and be-fucking-underlined. Likewise, I learned about green websites — sites that use less energy to serve up a page. And page design that uses less energy. I think Minutes to Midnight is where I learned to stop being obsessed with analytics and to not spy on my readers (or help Google spy on them).

I was surprised to find that the host of this site, dreamhost.com, seems to use a green amount of energy. I’ve tested the pages here. I was very surprised to see that my micro.blog sites aren’t as green as my dreamhost sites. I am not stressing about it, because honestly my sites over there get so little traffic. I’m working on getting all my sites nice and accessible. The biggest issue on micro.blog is that I tend to change themes on some of them a lot, and it takes to put the link underlines back in. This site could be greener. It runs on WordPress. Honestly, I’d rather it be static pages, but at this point I’m not going to convert over 1000 posts and pages. In the future, however, who knows?

One thing I’ve become more aware of is the effect of images and video on my pages. I’m trying to be more aware of not using images or video unless they are really the point of a post. If words will get the job done I just type the words.

October 6 will be the 20-year anniversary of this blog.

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Retirement and Science Fiction

Been thinking about things I want to do after I retire at the end of the year. For the last few years I’ve returned to one of my favorite pastime’s, reading science fiction. I’ve been keeping a blog about my reading over on micro.blog, called ReadingSF.Micro.blog.

micro.blog has an excellent bookshelves function. It is one of the oldest features of that system, and makes it very convenient to blog and/or podcast about books. It helps that the developer, Manton, likes to read and that his wife is a trained librarian (and an old grad school friend of mine).

One thing I’m going to do even more during retirement is read. I’m going to spend 1-2 hours a day reading. I’m thinking about really make that reading blog a more in-depth kind of thing. While I’m not planning to go back to school and become an academic, I’m thinking I’ll make that blog and my interest in SF into a “real project.”

So are this years I’ve not read as much as I’d like. For the last 2 years I’ve put a lot of energy into running and playing tabletop roleplaying games, which is a time-intensive hobby. But next year I will have time to relax, without any screens, and read very day. I’m really looking forward to that. I’m not sure why I feel compelled to write about everything I do, but that’s how I’m wired.

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In Shreveport

I’m in Shreveport, Louisiana, tonight. Drove over because some cousins were flying in to see family. It’s only about 3.5 hours from Dallas.

I have a lot of family here. Our ancestral spawning ground is about 20 miles south in Mansfield.

Shreveport is the city where Frank Sutton, the actor who played Sergeant Carter on Gomer Pyle, died. I’ve been coming here since I was a child. The city seems like it struggles and apparently has a declining population. In recent years there has been a lot of violent crime. Still, I have a lot of good memories of Shreveport. I love my family here. Having lived in Dallas for most of my life it would be hard to live here in such a smaller city. I’m used to having all that Dallas has to offer at my disposal. I mean – we went to see Rush twice in the last week.

I wish my family all lived in the same place. I hate how geographically dispersed families are now. It seems like life was better when families were close and could really support each other. Simultaneously I am glad my parents left Louisiana and moved to Texas in 1969, when I was 5. Growing up in a more cosmopolitan and diverse place was a gift. I really appreciate it now.

Driving around Shreveport that are streets and buildings I remember for my childhood. I remember riding bikes with my cousin Stewart from his house to a hobby shop and other places. When I was over here with Stewart I had a freedom I didn’t have at home, mostly because he just went wherever he wanted. Like so many cities, those old familiar places have changed. A lot of them replaced by the same boring chain stores and restaurants as everywhere else in Commodified America.

Our hotel is is in Downtown Shreveport, near the river. There are a lot of cool old buildings. So many small cities in the United State have these great old downtowns that have fallen into disrepair and non-use. There’s great old architecture, cool bridges…here in Shreveport there were once streetcars. My mom and her family used to ride the bus from their town up here to Shreveport and they would take the streetcars around shopping.

Not sure where I’m going with all this. Just getting it on “paper.”

These small cities could be so much more, and they are all over the country. We could do so much better.

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Hit me up

I am curious. Do you read this blog? I actually have no idea how many people might read it.

If you read it, please just say hello in a comment on this post. I don’t collect any analytics at all. Just wondering who is out there.

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Some Updates

It’s been a really good month thus far.  Updates…

  • For over a month I’ve been drinking half caffeinated/half decaf coffee. The first few days were rough. Now it is fine. Next month I will drop down to 1/4 caffeinated. Goal is to get caffeine mostly out of my diet. Also stopped adding sugar to my coffee.
  • We went to see Rush twice this month in Fort Worth. Awesome both times.
  • Played D&D and Traveller several times. Taking a week break to prepare more stuff.
  • Going to see family this weekend. Looking forward to that.
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Deaths of Politicians

If a politician votes against the rights of my niece, who is trans, like Lindsey Graham did, they are not worth mourning.

Same goes…

  • If they vote against the rights of my friends who are gay
  • If they vote against protecting the civil rights of anyone

It’s not complicated.

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My Retirement Uniform

A couple of weekends ago I needed a nice plain leather work belt to put my Rush belt buckle on. I went to a western wear store. Cavender’s Boot City, in Plano. That is totally not my style, but damn it was nice to be in a really nice clothing store, with quality clothing and knowledgeable employees. The enshittification of everything makes such experiences a real pleasure. I found a nice leather belt that actually smells like leather.

I actually wrote that last paragraph a couple of weeks ago. Since then I’ve been thinking about this even more. Apparently I don’t have enough important things to think about, so the little man in my brain comes up with stuff like this.

Before that trip to Cavender’s I ordered a leather belt off Amazon. When it arrived one of the little snaps where you change the buckle was already broken. ENSHITTIFICATION.  I returned it for a refund. Cavender’s was 95% stuff I would never wear. The whole country/western/cowboy aesthetic doesn’t appeal to me. For one thing it would be so fake on me. It would be like cosplay. For another thing, and this is not fair at all (but may be accurate), I associate that whole shit-kicker look and culture with characteristics like ignorance, religious bigotry and stupidity, bigotry in general, and anti-intellectualism in the grandest of anti-intellectual American style.

BUT – the merchandise was super nice! My style or not, man, being in a store full of quality clothing and intelligent employees made me feel like I was in the right place! At least for a plain leather work belt.

Yes, I know perfectly intelligent good folks who dress like that sometimes. But it’s just – not – me. So indulge me please in my rantings.

One of my nieces works for a very nice men’s clothing retailer. A few months ago, after talking with her about her work, I had a dream that I was shopping for clothes in a nice men’s clothing store (note: all great blog posts mention a dream). The kind of place where knowledgeable professionals work and help customer find clothing, that carries nice stuff, and is kept up well (not a mess). Weirdly I am developing a desire to own some higher quality clothing, especially during my upcoming retirement years. These days, cheap and shitty clothes aren’t inexpensive any more.

Now, inside I am still a dirty old skateboarder. I’ll always sit around the house in old shorts and tshirts, but in the future I want to present myself to the world in a well-dressed but not “old guy” style. Example: My wife got me a nice Ben Sherman shirt. That’s an English brand. I am not really a “brand” guy, but I like these shirts a lot. It is of course not made in England, but the quality is nice. It fits well.  When we go out to a show or somewhere nice now I like to wear that, some nice Dockers pants, and my black with green tint Doc Marten shoes (made in China these days, but whatever). We recently went to the Addition Improv to see comedian Kevin James Thornton, and I wore that. My wife wore a nice casual outfit. A lot of the men in the crowd looked like shit. I would be ashamed to take my wife out looking like that. You see this all over the place, adult men, at places nicer than Taco Bell, dressed like adult babies. Yeah, I’m leaning a bit elitest here I guess, but I also have this idea that our culture has slidden way too far down Low-Brow Hill, and I just don’t want to participate.

So I started looking at dedicated brick and mortar men’s clothing stores in the area. There are a few. Looking at their websites I see that most of them cater to what I’d call the Young Douchebag Demographic. You’ve seen this look. A suit with pants that are way too tight and a jacket with weirdly small or strangely-placed lapels. Add to that wearing no socks and some fucked-up looking shoes with that abomination in the form of a suit.  Oh, I almost forgot the comically oversized wrist watch.  I understand this is a style, but it’s a douchebag style, and one that in my nearly 62-year old but fit body I can’t pull off. I’d feel like an idiot.

There are a few stores that are possibilities. Sooner or later I will check them out. During retirement I want to have about 3 nice knit shirts – probably Ben Shermans, and a couple of nice pairs of trousers, and maybe another slightly different pair of Doc Martens. I feel like this look kinda honors my cool skateboarder history and persona (heh heh) while being presentable as an adult human being. I’ll make sure I have a proper, nice, classic suit and whatnot as well and a nice sport coat. I’m not talking about buying a lot of clothing. Just a few things that are nice, high-quality, and will last a while.

So I guess my point here is that finding nice clothes that feel authentic to me is what I’m wanting to do. I’m not a shit-kicker and I’m not a skinny young influencer. I’m a fit but slightly overweight skateboarder in the early senior years.

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Rush Shows Postponed and Retirement Stuff

Well, we spent the day in Fort Worth yesterday only to find out about 5pm that the Rush show that night and the one tomorrow are being delayed by 11 days, as Geddy has bronchitis and laryngitis.  Stuff happens. Hopefully he will recover and the shows will go on, but more important is the man’s health.

We are going to see comedian Kevin James Thornton tonight. Should be fun. It’s also closer to home which is nice. Honestly, I’m pretty tired this week. Increased allergy shot strength, waking up with a crick in my neck a couple of days ago which has affected my sleep, walking around in the heat in Fort Worth yesterday, and then battling the traffic on the way one have left me depleted. I am happy to be going to this show tonight, but really, no driving back to Forth Worth tomorrow is FINE with me.

At least I do have Friday off, which is nice! I can chill!

I was watching a video on YouTube from I guy I presume is in the UK about determining your daily rhythm in retirement. He’s a retirement YouTuber. Now, normally I am not a fan of YouTubers, but I gave this guy a chance, and I thought he had some good observations and ideas. He articulated some things I’ve been thinking about. I could go on and on about how much I hate the way our working lives are controlled not by our own needs but by the needs of others. I think this guy really got on my good side when he talked about learning your daily rhythm and, for him, not doing much more than chilling and drinking some coffee and reading before 10am. I think that’s the kind of person i am. That’s my clock. Now, I’ll have to do a few things before 10am, like walk the dog, but overall I am just looking forward to saying “fuck off” to anyone other than my wife who needs me to do anything before 10am.

I got my hair cut the other day, in in the process of making small talk with the haircutter I mentioned retiring. Their response was something like “you are retiring young.” Now, I am nice to everyone, but I was thinking “Well, I’ll be 62. How fucking long to I have to work?”

In other topics.

  • I’m still really not happy with the “theme” this blog uses, but I honestly can’t find a single other WordPress theme that I like. They all look like portals for cosmetics companies, “content marketers”, and other bullshit. Still thinking about a new system after I retire.
  • I want to go skate
  • D&D and Traveller are going well

That’s all for now.

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Waiting for Rush

We’re going to see Rush tomorrow night in Fort Worth.

Then we’re going back to see them again on Thursday night.

Yesterday we began a deep drive into the Rush catalog. Listened, in order, to all the albums up to and including Moving Pictures.

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Flow

Two weekends ago my friend Dale and I were at the skatepark up in McKinney, Texas. There is one feature we skate at the park. It’s kind of a little ditch-style bowl with banked walls (not round wall) that empties into a round-wall bowl. The surface of this run is not typical skatepark-smooth. It has a weird texture to it. When I ride hard wheels they never feel right in it. So for this particular trip I slapped some 56mm 87a OJ Keyframes on my larger street/ditch board. With the softer wheels my speed and flow were increased a lot. The bowl as a lot more fun to skate.

Dale and I weren’t doing that much. Dropping in, carving around, bending our knees, compressing, etc. I had a better time in that bowl than I’ve ever had. A young kid, about 13, came up to me and said “You look like you are flowing on water.” I was really surprised by this. I told him “Thank you – that is a really nice thing to say and I really appreciate it.”

I hope I see that kid again. I feel like I need to thank him again. At the time I didn’t realize how impactful that simple but kind comment was to me. It really made my day. Hell, I suppose it made my week, since I’m still talking about it.

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Alva, Flow, and Groove

Fair warning. I’m about to go on about Tony Alva again…

Every few weeks I do a YouTube search for new Tony Alva footage. From what I can see, Tony doesn’t go out “to film.” He goes out and skates, and maybe someone shoots some video, and maybe some of it is pretty good, and maybe it ends up on YouTube. Such is the case with this video below.

After watching this video several times today I texted it to some friends with some comments about how relaxed this skating is.

When I see rippers today on nearly any terrain they look frantic to me. Maybe it’s because they are going really fast, but I think it’s more than that. Not sure what, but I’ll figure it out. The propagation of skateboarding video, first on VHS tapes and now streaming to your pocket idiot-device has to some extent homogenized skating. I think it’s hard to argue against that, so I’m calling it a fact. I see it in freestyle skateboarding too. Where once skaters only had access to see the skating of their friends, or maybe the best person in town, or a group of local pros, now everyone has immediate access to everything. I think to some extent this permeates not just skateboarding but probably everything. Culture, pop culture, subculture, is now global. How sub can a global subculture be? Not very.

So now I see clips of rippers skating parks as fast at they can, every trick seems rushed and on the edge of disaster. Now the edge of disaster is often celebrated in skateboarding and rightfully so. Still, seeing someone blast around like a lunatic simply doesn’t connect with me.

Yes, this is likely a function of my age, but not entirely. I’d have said the same thing if I was 23 right now. Correction; 23, but with the same formative skate experiences.

At the start of this video, Alva does a little axle stall on a small wall, then does a casual 540 spin on the opposing bank. Relaxed. Styish. Smooth.

I heard him in a recent interview that what he thinks about now when skating isn’t so much learning new stuff but refining what he already knows. It shows. That line looks so satisfying. I can guess that when he does that line, he isn’t like “Wow, look what I just did!” but rather “Damn, that felt good!”.

Same with every line in that bowl.

My friend The Lone Sentry says Alva has Groove.

Earlier this year I was at an Aikido seminar taught by an 85 year old 7th Dan, Harvey. Harvey’s knees are kinda worn out. He’s a bit broken down, but he’s still teaching, and still learning. He told us the thing he loves about Aikido is that no matter how old you get there are still thing to learn, things where understanding can be deepened. I think skateboarding is the same way.

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Unfollowing Tech

For the most part, across any social media or blogging platform I use, I am unfollowing anyone who works in “tech.” There are a few I’m staying with, represented in my blog roll, and at least one other, but for the most part I just can’t read another post or article about one of the AI platforms doing this or that, why one is better than the other, etc.

I know this is just fascinating, right?

 

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Reading

When I retire, one daily practice that I insist on is at least an hour of quiet reading every day. No noise. No internet. No TV. Just reading.

I think reading is one of the best things you can do.